dinosaur training

i have been reading a book recently be a guy called brook d kubik called dinosaur training. im curious if anyone has read it or uses the methods it describes.

it basically advocates the use of training that was utilised by turn of the century strongmen. strongmen who could perform 729lb one arm deadlifts and who could easily put a 300lb sack of flour over their heads.

the exercises described in it predate machines (and steroids!) so involve basic compund movements like bench, squat, deadlift, overhead press, heavy curls,olympic lifting and sandbag and barrel work. also is the use of partial very heavy reps to strengthen tendons and ligaments. prevailent is also the use of thick bars.

some of the strength feats that these guys acheived are remarkable and many of them had enormous physiques whilst only training three times a week. there is no high rep work other than death sets - its mostly singles, doubles and up to 5reps (what i like to hear!)

the early bodybuilders also used such techniques (like charles atlas and reg park) before the advent of steroids allowed people to train for much longer and ever day. in my view, modern drugged up bodybuilders like ronnie coleman et al look totally ridiculous. the concept of aethetics has been totally lost. its just about being big now.

does anyone here employ 'dinosaur' techniques?

jonathan

I believe that this is basically the HIT (High Intensity Training) principle.

Ohh man low reps, yeah I like that. Im doing a week or two of high reps just to shake things up, but the low reps are so much better, then I can be done in under an hour and be sure I did so much lifting I couldn't do any more.

the funny thing with low reps is that provided you do them with sufficient intesity they are more effective in creating strength and solid muscle than high rep work.

also the thought of a workout with 10different exercises fills me with fear and dread! id much rather do heavy doubles at over 90% of my 1rms!

jonathan

Dinosaur Training is a fantastic book - the article I wrote for this site around 2 years ago was based off of my experiences training after I'd read it. I think that people often lose sight of the simple factors in training and get too involved in doing excessive quantities of exercises, and the book definitely puts that into perspective. For example, the first 2 years I lifted, my back workouts would consist of around 12-15 sets total of 4-5 different exercises, yet I'd made minimal progress after quite some time. Enter Dinosaur training years down the road - I'd made more progress up to this point, but I was still not getting far until after I applied the principles I'd read. Dropped to 1 or 2 exercises per body part per session, 2 warmups and 3 all-out work sets, and somehow everything jumped to great levels after only a few months. I definitely credit it with changing my views on lifting, and since then I've only been getting stronger!

Ryan

I think this type of training works for a lot of people, my one gripe is when people always say it's what the old time strongmen did. It isn't. They were all vaudeville/musichall performers. They did there acts daily, & more at weekends, they also trained besides that. All the oldtimers had to do that just to make a living. After they'd become strong/famous then they may have cut there routines down & focused of mail order courses etc (i.e. Thomas Inch, Maxalding et al), but to gain their strength they worked out 6 times a week at least!

Not that I recommend that as they were genetic freaks, but just to put the record straight.

Even if this isn't how the old timers trained I do still like it as a training system.

Pete,

You're right on with the point that it isn't how the old-time strongmen actually trained - I think it is always a misconception that it was the basis of their training, but I think that the only things they really have in common are the shared simplicity and intensity and that's about it. Some of the old timers would train one lift each day, some would train singles on a dozen lifts, others were different yet....everyone was doing what worked for them, and I think that it does frequently get confused that the book is an actual program that was commonly used. Still, I think that the main point of the book is that we often get too lost in complex routines and fancy machines and what-not, and sometimes all it takes to make great advancements it to simplify and work harder than ever to acheive results. That advice alone is well worth it!

Ryan

I think this type of training works for a lot of people, my one gripe is when people always say it's what the old time strongmen did. It isn't. They were all vaudeville/musichall performers. They did there acts daily, & more at weekends, they also trained besides that. All the oldtimers had to do that just to make a living. After they'd become strong/famous then they may have cut there routines down & focused of mail order courses etc (i.e. Thomas Inch, Maxalding et al), but to gain their strength they worked out 6 times a week at least!

Not that I recommend that as they were genetic freaks, but just to put the record straight.

Even if this isn't how the old timers trained I do still like it as a training system.

If you'd fancy seeing how the oldtimers really did it, here's a link to a site that has old books for free you can read what they actually wrote themselves about training, diet etc. I like George Hackenschmidt - The way to live (I own this book, it's great!), anything by Thomas Inch is pretty good too, Goerner was a strong guy, but a real meat & beer type of guy, Reg Parks (quite modern, but a strong guy into basic training),. The list goes on, there's a library of quality stuff on this site, for free, for you to use!

http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/compindex.htm#trevor